


Fate and Frayed Edges

by Tibbins



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Episode: c01e105 The Fear of Isolation, F/M, Keyleth-centric (Critical Role), Language, Minor Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia, Terrah, Vax'ildan's deal with the Raven Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26172211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tibbins/pseuds/Tibbins
Summary: They hadn’t really had a moment alone since Vax had stumbled back to them in the Feywild, and Keyleth still couldn’t quite bring herself to believe that he was real. She supposed it didn’t help that they’d met two gods since. Elysium, while beautiful, was hardly the kind of place that made her feel grounded in reality.A little ironic then that their next stop at Terrah, the home of the Earth Ashari, was where she was finally, finally allowed to crash.An angst-filled fic where Vax and Keyleth try to figure out their next steps and sort through hurt feelings with the Raven Queen's deal looming. Takes place during episode 105.
Relationships: Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Critical Role), Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	Fate and Frayed Edges

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! 
> 
> So this is my first CR fic. I have been bingeing it pretty much non-stop for the past month and a half and as of a few days ago I have officially finished the story of Vox Machina (except for the one shots after episode 115 so please no spoilers).
> 
> I adore Vaxleth. I love them so much. So I had to write something to commemorate one of the most heartbreaking plot threads in the show so far: Vax's deal with the Raven Queen. 
> 
> Enjoy ^_^

They hadn’t really had a moment alone since Vax had stumbled back to them in the Feywild, and Keyleth still couldn’t quite bring herself to believe that he was real. She supposed it didn’t help that they’d met two gods since. Elysium, while beautiful, was hardly the kind of place that made her feel grounded in reality.

A little ironic then that their next stop at Terrah, the home of the Earth Ashari, was where she was finally, _finally_ allowed to crash.

Vax had tried to talk to her even as she balled herself up facing the wall, on the very far edge of the slightly lumpy mattress. He undressed and lay next to her as though he was allowed, as though nothing had changed, as though he was still _alive_. He had reached for her with his cold hand and she flinched away, curling tighter into the blankets and squeezing her eyes shut as though that would stop the tears. She felt herself shaking, with rage or fear she wasn’t sure. She felt his soft huff of a breath move the edges of her hair, the sound something a little like pain, a little like disappointment, a little too much like understanding. He didn’t try to touch her again but settled on his own side of the bed, giving her space and making no further attempt to breach the gap. She wished he would, and at the same time she was glad he didn’t.

She woke a bare few hours later, her eyes gummy as she blinked them open, her mouth dry. The room was still dark, the rough clay walls monochrome to her half-elven sight, even as she picked out small cracks and the dust that tumbled out as the next shift of the ground shook it loose. She wondered if that was what had awoken her. It didn’t take much these days, she’d become a light sleeper out of necessity. Running from danger to danger did that to a person. She was tempted to let sleep take her once more but the idea worried her. She seemed to have escaped nightmares so far, but it would only be a matter of time before they crept up on her. Images flashed through her mind: Vecna, one hollow, pulsing green socket, the other eye pinched in a malicious grin as he pointed his finger at a bound Vax, held frozen near her feet, finishing the work Delilah had begun out of spite for _her_. She watched, helpless, unable to move as for the second time in just a few seconds—though she still wasn’t entirely sure how—Vax’s skin turned black and began to flake away, his eyes darting from the place where his sister had just fallen, meeting hers for the briefest of moments, full of fear, before his armour lay empty of all but ash.

A sob wrenched its way out of her before she could stop it and she pushed a hand to her mouth quickly to muffle the sound.

“Kiki?” The voice behind her was barely more than a whisper.

Keyleth said nothing. Perhaps if she was quiet and held still he’d think she’d just made a noise in her sleep. Of course, it was a foolish hope. Vax’ildan was no idiot, and he knew her too well.

There was a sigh, gentle and kind, and a slight shifting of the bed. Only slight. Vax was light and careful, an expert at leaving no mark on his surroundings. The same couldn’t be said for the people he loved though. Keyleth knew there was no erasing the mark he had left on her.

“Did you see?” she asked, unable to stop herself. The question had haunted her since the Feywild. She had voiced it then, but in the cacophony of other questions and fears she hadn’t got an answer.

“See what?” Vax asked, patient. Endlessly patient. It stung and it surprised her. How could a man with so little time left still be so patient?

“When I cast _Foresight_ on you. Did you see it coming? Your death? Did I make you watch it happen before it did?”

The tears were falling thick again and she knew she’d get a headache soon. She couldn’t bring herself to turn around, to look at him. She knew what she’d see: pale bare chest, dark wings bruised over his heart, black hair tucked haphazardly behind one slightly pointed ear, tendrils of it falling over his shoulders and those kind eyes looking down at her with so much love that it terrified her. She didn’t want to see any of it.

“Can I hold you while I answer? Please?”

She nodded, too weak to deny him, and barely a second later she was scooped up, blanket and all, into his arms and feather-light kisses were being peppered to her hair, the side of her face, the bare tips of her shoulders. She shivered, partially at the chill of his lips, partially at the touch that she both craved and wanted to pull away from. He held her fast and she didn’t try to move away, relishing the familiar firm grip; one arm around her waist, the other across her chest. His fingers rested lightly on her bicep over the blanket. She sat in his lap, her knees braced against the mattress on either side of his thighs, her back was flush against his chest and she felt his heartbeat through her shoulder blades. Steady, but far, far too slow.

“I saw it.” He confirmed, his hold tightening as her entire body convulsed in a moment of pure guilt and sorrow, almost eclipsing his next few words. “But it didn’t scare me. Not like you’re imagining it did.”

“It scared me.” Keyleth whispered back. “I saw it too. I watched you die twice. First Delilah, then Vecna… I think Scanlan dispelled the first one, but I still saw it happen.”

It was crazy. _She_ hadn’t been the one with _F_ _oresight_ at the time, but she knew she hadn’t imagined it. Somehow, she had watched what would have happened had Scanlan not countered Delilah’s spell, her horror turning to a relief so big she had almost smiled right there on the battlefield, only for Vecna to make her watch it all over again.

“I’m so sorry for that.”

That was one of the things she loved about Vax; he knew so little about the magic she wielded that he never asked her to try and explain when strange things like that happened, things that made her question her own powers, her own sanity. But that lack of comprehension never meant a lack of understanding. He knew her. He knew her more completely than she had ever allowed another person to know her. He always saw where she was coming from, even when she was wrong, or angry, or confused and he often knew the why of it even before she did. He probably knew why she couldn’t face him right now, why she was crying instead of elated. She hated that his return had somehow brought _more_ pain than his death had. She hated herself for looking at it that way. She hated that she was hurting him too.

“I wasn’t afraid of dying, Keyleth,” he continued, sliding her name from his tongue like something precious. “I was pretty sure I wouldn’t make it out the other end of that fight anyway. But I saw what he could do, I saw my sister fall… I knew the rest of you wouldn’t be far behind. He was too strong and we were unprepared and what scared me was the idea of not knowing how that battle ended.” He paused for a second and Keyleth could almost see the half-smirk that she knew was on his face. “Not that I didn’t have complete faith in you, of course.”

Keyleth snorted, a wet, gross sound. “Right. I totally could’ve taken him all by myself.”

“Well,” Vax conceded, “you and Scanlan. Don’t tell him I said this but that little fucker is probably the most powerful of all of us.”

She nodded and wriggled back a little closer. That was another thing she loved about Vax. She’d never need to tell Scanlan what Vax thought of him because Vax would tell him himself. He was so open with how he loved people and he never left anyone feeling unappreciated. She thought that was why Scanlan’s leaving had impacted him like it had. He had seen it as a failure on his part, especially with the accusations the bard had been tossing around. She still resented him for that, but there was no denying that Scanlan had come through time and again when it really mattered.

“Yeah.”

Vax was silent for a few more moments, seeming content to press kisses to her temple, behind her ear, her cheek.

“I wanted to come back to help. I need to see this thing through. Stupid as that is.”

“Why is that stupid?”

His sigh tickled the back of her neck. “Because I wasn’t any use the first fucking time. Turns out it’s hard to stab things when I can’t move and the wings were fuck all help.”

“ _I_ was fuck all help.”

“That’s not what I said and not what I meant and you know it.”

“I could have given you _Freedom of Movement_ instead,” she muttered bitterly. “Then I still would have had a ninth level spell to use.”

“You didn’t know. None of us knew what the fuck we were getting into. And with Briarwood and that Death Knight _as well_ as a wannabe god? There was no way we could have done more.”

Keyleth said nothing to that. She’d turned over that fight and the preparations, or lack thereof, that they’d made to get there. She should have insisted on making a hero’s feast, she should have assumed restraint would be a problem, she should have cast all the protective spells she had on her friends, everything that would last for the duration of a battle. She knew logically that it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. They’d thrown everything they had at Vecna and he hadn’t even flinched. They’d only barely managed to kill Delilah and as far as she was aware they’d made almost no impact on the Death Knight at all.

Unfortunately, logic had never made her guilt go away. Their failure didn’t bode well for the rest of Exandria either. They were the ones who took out dangers like this. They had the experience, the skills, the fucking vestiges, but none of that had mattered. If Vox Machina couldn’t take down Vecna, what hope did anyone else have? It was arrogant perhaps, she was sure there were other capable people in the world and there were certainly people more powerful than her and her bumbling, good-hearted family, but there was no one else she could think of that she trusted to be able to do this. So now they were begging literal gods for their blessings, hoping—like they had with the vestiges against the Chroma Conclave—that a small burst of power would be just enough to help them muddle through.

Except, no matter what happened, even if they won, she would lose Vax all over again. Unable to stand it any longer she twisted in his grip, which loosened immediately, and she shifted so that she could look at him, still close, almost chest to chest. His sharp cheekbones, his pointed chin, his dark hair and those beautiful, soft eyes that contained more compassion than she’d ever felt in her life. It was like he absorbed all the love he had ever felt and experienced and radiated it back to her through his eyes. It was something so uniquely Vax that it caught her breath. If she had any lingering doubts that the person in front of her wasn’t truly the Vax she loved, those doubts were gone now. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

Unintentionally her eyes flicked to the bruising on his torso and her fingers reached up to trace the wings. He watched her, waiting, bringing up his own hand to wipe away the tears from her face. She didn’t like how cold his skin was now. He had never been all that warm to begin with—he was too skinny to hold much heat—but the gentle thrum of life that she had taken for granted was gone from him. As a druid she was connected to life in a way that she didn’t think the rest of her party could understand. Every living thing had a light to it, an energy. Everything fighting every moment of every day just to continue existing. It was an aura that she loved. Walking in a forest felt like a golden buzz, cities rumbled and thrashed with it. Small moments between people hummed with a beautiful connection. A connection that Vax no longer had.

She didn’t know the specifics of what the Raven Queen had done to him, but she hated her for it. Keyleth jerked her fingers back from the goddess’ mark, reaching around Vax’s neck to find her own. The raised welt of her handprint covering the brand of the Clasp.

“I wish you hadn’t dealt with her,” she said quietly. A confession almost lost to the next low rumble of earth below them. “I was going to bring you back.”

A faint frown creased his brow. “Without a body?”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I have a spell. I could’ve done it. We just needed diamonds. A lot of them. We were going to go to Kraghammer, or somewhere, or Scanlan was going to make them. We would have brought you back with or without her blessing.”

“I don’t think my lady would have liked that.”

“ _I’m_ your lady,” Keyleth said fiercely, her nails were probably digging into Vax’s skin, but he didn’t wince. “If she had a problem with it she would have had to go through me.”

He bent his neck to kiss her forehead, smiling. “I love your fire,” he said. “If anyone could defy her, it would be you.”

“Maybe I still can.”

“Kiki—”

“There might be a way, you don’t know.”

“I’d rather you didn’t try.”

Vax’s voice was firm as he reached up to pry her hand from his neck, instead threading their fingers together as he pressed cool lips to her knuckles.

“I don’t think it’s wise to poke at this particular bear,” he said as he clasped her hand in both of his own.

“I don’t know if I can leave it be.”

“I know this is hard for you,” Vax said, and Keyleth couldn’t even scoff at the triteness of that statement because he _did_ know, and that only made it worse. “But I don’t know what happens if this deal breaks. I won’t risk my sister’s life.”

“We never know what happens.” Keyleth could hear the pleading in her own voice, knowing that the argument was already as good as lost but dammit she had to keep fighting. “All we ever do is try and hope for the best. We don’t know that Vex would even be in danger. You became her champion and Vex lived, that was the deal you made then and you’re still her champion so that deal stands. This is something else entirely. What if all it would take was a conversation?”

“It’s never that easy.”

“None of this is easy!” She hissed. She wanted to scream it, but was all too aware of their proximity to the other lodgings her friends had been placed in. “Nothing we do is easy. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Do you truly think you’re the only one who would make a deal to save someone they care about?”

The ground moved again with a low scraping sound, punctuating the new tension between them with a gentle rolling as the bed tipped up slightly from one side to the other before it stilled once more. Vax’s expression was a mixture of concern and apprehension as he looked up at her face, eyes wide.

“I don’t think we have anything else that she wants, Kiki.”

Keyleth sighed and shifted her weight more comfortably in Vax’s lap. The position wasn’t ideal for either of them, but she at least was reluctant to give up the closeness. She reached out with her free hand and trailed a finger along the line of his cheek. His skin still felt the same. It had the same slight give, the same ridges and small white lines of scarring it always had. She heated the tips of her fingers, not enough to catch fire, just enough to kid herself.

“If we don’t all die fighting Vecna, I’ll have life. An abundance of it. More than I’ll know what to do with.”

He frowned, his eyes flashing dark. “What are you saying? That you would trade your life for mine?”

“Some of it, sure,” she said, as nonchalantly as she could manage, though she felt a quiver of fear skitter through her at the thought of giving that raven bitch _anything_. “She hates immortality, right? Super long life?”

“ _Unnatural_ super long life,” he corrected her. “Necromancy, not nature.”

“Maybe she’ll see it as the same thing,” she said stubbornly. “Before completing the Aramenté my lifespan was the same as any half-elf. It’s still a… a ritual that changes fate, it might be enough.”

“No.” Vax said, in that unyielding tone of voice that said he was digging his heels in. “I don’t want you involved in this. She has no interest in you and I want it to stay that way. You’re too bright to bear that shadow.”

She drew her hand back as it clenched into a fist and tugged her other out of his grip too, not wanting to burn Vax as they ignited with her sudden fury. The flames cast strange patches of dancing darkness in the small room, a bright contrasting orange to the greyscale that hurt her eyes. She heard Vax wince too and they both took a moment to blink while Keyleth focussed on deep breaths and trying to will the fire out. It remained burning, just as her anger remained burning.

“Why is it so fucking complicated?” she burst out. “A deal with her doesn’t mean that I’ll be marked the way that you are. I will never blindly follow any god. I don’t work in faith. I won’t be her champion. But I would give her a few hundred of my many, many years if it means getting the chance to watch you grow old. It doesn’t have to be more than that.”

“But it is.” Her still flaming hands were a buffer between them now and she felt a pain from the distance. Vax’s full attention was a sharp thing, piercing, but it didn’t usually hurt so much. “It is more. It’s _fate_ , Kiki. My fate. I bound myself to her and she’ll claim me when it’s time.”

Keyleth scoffed, her fiery hands were balled together between them and though she itched to move, to bridge the newly created rift, she was, ironically, frozen. “Right. And that time will be whenever it suits her. Fate doesn’t mean anything, Vax. Nothing predetermined _needs_ to happen. Fate only has as much power as we give it. I could have brought you back. Without a body, without her help, I could have brought you back, and that would have had nothing to do with fate and everything to do with how many fucking diamonds I could find and you wouldn’t have come back cold!”

Shadows swirled and retreated on Vax’s face like the pulling of the tide. His eyes sparkled in the light, the blue feather in one of his small braids dangled where neck met shoulder, revealed then hidden with each minute twitch of Keyleth’s hands. She thought she saw something jump in his jaw but couldn’t be certain.

The ground moved beneath them again and Keyleth only barely remembered to keep her hands up, fighting the instinct to brace herself against the bed and probably setting the blanket alight. When it stilled again she looked back to Vax and her hands extinguished. She was still angry, but it didn’t feel as wild. Instead she felt small. The sudden plunge back into darkness was jarring, but nowhere near as much as the conflicted expression Vax wore.

“I want you to live for a very long fucking time,” he said quietly, his hands returning. One cupped the side of her neck, the other her cheek. “A thousand years of you, remember?”

“When that suddenly turned into a thousand years without you, I lost interest,” Keyleth snapped back. “You’re the first person I’ve ever let myself love. I saw you die in the water plane. I watched you turn to dust, _twice_ , and you come back and you’re half-dead with an hourglass pouring sand over our heads. All the time that you _promised_ me. The time that I needed to be okay with one day letting you go. It’s too soon. I’m not ready. I need more than one good year.”

Vax’s face twisted in agony then, his own eyes beginning to brim with glossy tears in response to hers. Another reason she loved him, even as it broke her heart. He was never afraid to cry.

“I’m sorry I promised you something I can’t give,” he murmured, his arms wrapping around her once more to tug her close. She pressed her ear to his chest and found no comfort in the too-slow beat she heard. “I’m sorry I keep letting you down.”

“You’ve never let me down,” she said immediately. It wasn’t truly a lie. She understood how it had come to this. He had turned to the Raven Queen in order to save his sister. Knowing Vax, there had been nothing else she could have expected from him in that moment in the tomb. In some ways she wished it had ended then and there, a simple trade of a life for a life. Everything surrounding him since had been so confusing and uncertain. She could accept him dying for Vex, just as she could accept him dying in battle, but losing him to the whims of a selfish god was something else entirely.

As though Vax could read her mind he began rocking her, stroking her hair. She leaned into the comfort, a small thing though it was.

“I need to honour the deal I made,” he murmured, his voice cracking as he spoke. “I don’t _want_ to leave you.”

“So don’t. Please.” Her voice came out a weak thing, and Vax’s only response was to hold her tighter.

She lost track of time after that. She thought she dozed, exhaustion getting the better of her wrapped in the safety of Vax’s embrace, but it still only felt like a minute or two before a soft knock came at the door and Keyleth started, nearly tipping sideways onto the mattress. Vax steadied her and they both stretched out their stiff legs quietly, wincing at the soreness their prolonged awkward positioning had left. It was lighter in the room now, the cracks around the door and the few structural imperfections that were inevitable when living over the constantly moving Earth Plane showed the faintest hints of orange and yellow bleeding through. Still early, perhaps, but Keyleth knew that their moment of rest was done.

“Oi, Vax. Are you naked?”

“Yes.” Vax responded immediately. He sounded mildly annoyed at the sound of his sister’s voice, like he’d just been woken too, though judging by the way his arms hadn’t dropped during their brief period of respite, he hadn’t given in to the lull of sleep.

“Well put some clothes on then.” Came Vex’s impatient reply. “Keyleth, sorry.”

Keyleth went to open the door while Vax rummaged for his underclothes, grumbling under his breath. Vex looked as perfectly put together as always, despite the turmoil of the past few days, though her braid was wild in the way it always was unless Vax fixed it for her. Her armour gleamed and her smile was beautiful and false, ready for anything. Keyleth had always felt a little intimidated by Vex, never quite sure of where she stood with her. But there was a lot of kindness in there that Keyleth hadn’t noticed at first, and beneath the intensity—more performative than her brother’s—there was a woman that Keyleth liked very much.

She saw the true apology in Vex’s eyes that didn’t come across in her tone.

“I- I’m dressed,” she said unnecessarily, gesturing down at herself. She had only taken off the mantle to sleep, as though leather armour would protect her from the maelstrom in her head. “I’m not like that. That’s, um, never mind. Um...”

“You don’t sleep naked?”

Ever quick to pick up on something in her nonsense ramblings, Keyleth stopped talking as Vex grinned brightly at her, a sparkle of mischief in the eyes she shared with Vax. Keyleth had never been good at the witty repartee the rest of the group (aside from Grog) seemed to navigate with ease. She got flustered on a good day and words failed her now, already drained from the entirety of _everything_ that had happened over the past several days.

“I’m gonna go get coffee,” she said, leaving the door ajar as she slipped around Vex and away in the direction of the kitchens. She didn’t look back, but after a few seconds of walking she figured that Vex wouldn’t have bothered watching her and made a sharp right instead. She wasn’t going anywhere in particular, just _away_. She really didn’t want to talk to anyone for a while. Well… almost anyone.

She made it to the very edge of the village and cast a furtive look around before ducking behind a large tree. She sat on the ground, her back to the trunk. It was uncomfortable. The ground was hard and more small stones than slabs of earth or rock, but it was the closest to home she’d felt in a long while. She leaned back against the tree, looking up through its sparse branches to the lightening sky.

She thought of Zephrah, her home there, the home that she and Vax had built together over the past year; slowly turning a set of rooms into something that was theirs, a blend of the two of them. Potted plants on every flat surface, a rack on the wall that held the daggers that were more ornamental than useful, and the memories, of course.

It had taken Vax months to really begin to settle. She remembered the pride warm in her chest on the day he came back with a rug to put in front of the fireplace. It was a hideous thing but plush, and he said the texture reminded him of her in Minxie form. Keyleth didn’t care that it clashed horribly with the rest of the furniture, she had kissed him senseless on it the moment he’d placed it down, joy swelling inside her that he was finally feeling comfortable with the idea of _staying_. His whole life he’d been a wanderer, and he’d never had more than what he could carry. Even his room in Greyskull Keep had been pretty bare. He’d moved into her room without question, both in Greyskull and in Whitestone, and he’d never taken up more than two drawers with all of his clothes and possessions. Every time he placed a new book on a shelf, or casually left a cloak draped over a chair it had been a silent promise of _later_. Like he was making plans to read, to tidy, to live.

Grief slammed into her. Premature though it may be, thinking of opening that door and seeing that rug, and those books, and the brightly coloured blankets and the black and grey winter cloaks he’d bought because she liked to leave the windows open even when it rained, and the pots that he’d painted with gold and purple swirls after she’d complained once that the simple ceramic looked boring, and the notebook full of sketches that he had shown her one night, unusually shy; she was suddenly terrified of it. Panicked. Fanciful ideas flashed through her head of simply never returning, of settling somewhere else entirely, away from what remained of Vox Machina after—if there was an after—they defeated Vecna, away from the pressure of leading that she’d never really wanted in the first place, away from his mark on the space that she had always imagined growing up would be hers alone.

Tears stung at her eyes again and a sound rumbled in her throat like a growl. She was sick of crying. It felt like all she’d done since the Feywild was cry, but right now everything was just so _much_. She felt everything all at once and she didn’t know what to do. She hadn’t processed the fact that Vex and Percy had apparently become secretly engaged at some point in the past year, nor even that Scanlan had tried to rip his own eyeball out, or that they had been so close to having to abandon Grog to whatever plane the Death Knight had sent him too. She was too overwhelmed to even be happy that Vax was here with them now instead of in Scanlan’s pocket.

It was small and selfish of her perhaps, to fixate on the way her life and everything she held dear was crumbling around her when she knew the rest of the party felt it too, but she couldn’t help it. This ragtag group of people were _everything_ to her, even more than the Ashari people she had grown up with. They had expected her to lead, to train, to always know what to do, to come up with a solution to every problem. Vox Machina had only ever expected her to help, to do her best in shitty circumstances, and they had forgiven even her most grievous mistakes. She felt more free with these people than she ever had in Zephrah.

And even if everything went perfectly from here on out, she would still watch all of them die.

It was the curse of longevity she supposed all beings like her faced, but she wondered if it was different because of how full her life was. She wasn’t even thirty and she had slain dragons, beholders and demons, visited Elysium and the Nine Hells. She had saved lives and towns and entire continents. She had completed the duty pushed onto her from birth and was planning to take down a potential new god. And she had done it all with the same people at her side. Well, mostly. Tiberius had been a hard blow, the initial shock to her system that made her new reality so clear: she would spend the rest of her hellish long life losing people, and no _True Resurrection_ spell would be any damn use. She understood now why the Ashari people had closed themselves off from the rest of the world. When their leaders lived for centuries how could they _not_ be afraid of making connections they’d only have to watch fray apart? How could she find an _after_ to Vox Machina? How could any of the bureaucracy and small changes and everyday leadership she would implement over the next thousand years feel as important as right now?

A slight breeze played across her face and she breathed in deeply. The scent of charred earth and pine. She would have to be quick if she was going to return to the twins with coffee in a reasonable amount of time, but it was so tempting to stay a little while longer. It was a strange thing, contemplating a long tunnel of blank years, where time stretched, swollen and seemingly endless, while the moments around her slipped by too quickly, even as she tried to grasp them. It was as though Vox Machina were a bubble of colour and movement, and everything beyond was void.

She shivered, angry at herself. She hadn’t come out here to wallow, though she found herself slipping into it more and more lately. Stealing herself she took another heavy breath and closed her eyes.

_I may not be faithful but I know you can hear me._ She prayed, conjuring the image in her mind of that horrible porcelain face to give her silent words some sense of direction. _Just as you’ve probably been able to hear everything I’ve been discussing with your champion._ She swallowed the bitterness down. Lack of privacy was one thing she’d never understood about those who followed the gods. Pike often spoke of feeling the warm presence of Serenrae everywhere she went. She seemed to find comfort in it. Keyleth found it creepy, even though Serenrae herself had been pleasant enough.

_I don’t know if taking some of my life would appeal to you as a trade, but if it does you’re welcome to it. At this point I’d gladly take one regular length of life if it meant I could spend it with him. Surely you understand that. You can’t be that far removed from humanity if you cared enough to accept his bargain in the first place. Right?_

The question was involuntary, another manifestation of her own fears. She shook herself, cleared her throat and continued.

_Even if you don’t want anything from me, you still owe him. He has served you with grace and loyalty and will continue to do so for the rest of his days_ _and beyond_ _. Wha_ _t’s the sense in cutting h_ _is work_ _on this plane_ _short_ _? We both know that it isn’t fate._ _If fate is fluid enough f_ _or you to lay claim on_ _the life of a man who would have chosen to follow another then_ _I have no doubts that my choice to talk to you now, that the choices the rest of us will make to protect him will be enough to change it again. You can hold him to his deal, no one is denying that, but it’s your timeline I have issue with. What is one half-elf lifespan to you? Why would you deny your champion a long and beautiful life with the people who love him the most? He can do more for you here. He will do more great things. Send us after your enemies, Vecna isn’t the only one. There are liches in the world, necromancers, those who deal in unlife. We will destroy them. He will do it for you, and we will do it for him._ _Give him back. Fully. A bound man can have no real fate, but if you free him he will still choose you. Don’t take him from us. Don’t make any victory we will gain from this task hollow._ _He made promises to me too. Let him keep them._ _Let him stay. Please._

She focussed on the image in her head, almost willing something to happen. She waited for several long moments. The face in her mind’s eye remained blank. She waited a little longer. Nothing.

She wrenched open her eyes, angry and humiliated at the act of baring herself to a deity who didn’t even bother listening. As she did so, she flinched and let out a small sound that would have turned into a scream had she not choked. That porcelain mask floated right in front of her. She blinked and it was gone, though her heart pounded in her throat. Just an afterimage. Because she’d been concentrating on it so hard, that was all it was. Still, she was shaky as she got to her feet, using the tree trunk for support far more than would usually be necessary. As she turned back towards the village, her neck prickled with the sensation of being watched. She looked over her shoulder and saw a large black bird take flight from the tree she’d been resting against.

As the raven darted away beyond her sight, she recalled the last time she was here. An old woman surrounded by ghosts, and the words: _Your future is as important as it is fragile. Protect it._

_I’m trying_ , she thought as she headed towards the kitchens, where a steady trickle of early risers were already making their way. _I’m trying._

**Author's Note:**

> So what did you think? I am actually really happy with how it turned out.
> 
> Feel free to come yell at me on [Tumblr](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Love Tibbins xx


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